Life Goes On…
June 4, 2011
Well, since my last post I have finished up my time at Busch Gardens and moved back to Chapel Hill. Today is Friday, June 3rd, and I performed my last day with the Mix It Up crew on Wednesday, June 1st and moved the remainder of my stuff to Chapel Hill yesterday (Thursday).
I was pretty adamant about not saying goodbye to anyone… I hate goodbyes, I really do, because the thought of not ever seeing someone again is a really painful concept to me. And, I’d love to say it’s an unnecessary pain not worth enduring, but I know that’s not true, because there is such a thing as good pain. So, while I refused to be sad to any of my friends or make any long drawn out goodbyes, I did take time to myself to really appreciate why I’m even sad to be leaving this place.
This whole experience has been great. Sure, it had it’s rough patches, but we’ll chalk that up to be the character-building crap that any worthwhile experience must have. Being a part of the original cast for a brand new show was such a neat experience. I’ve been a part of a creation process before, several times and from several perspectives, but to be a part of the imagination process that happened for this show was truly unique. And, it wasn’t a one-day thing, or a one-week thing, it was something that was happening right up until my last day. The freedom we had as performers on that stage was SUCH a learning experience. We were encouraged to embrace characters, create story-lines, employ jokes, and we did just that. Every show was different, and I love looking back on old videos and realizing how far we all came since that first Team Member Preview Night back in March O_o ooooh what a disaster that was in comparison to where we are now. There’s a video on youtube (that you can find yourself!) advertising our show from that evening that is a PERFECT example of how much we evolved from dry, boring musicians walking around on a stage to [somewhat] convincing PERFORMERS acting and dancing! I think the change is best represented in the scene where we are being frantically pushed across the stage in rolling chairs by the dancers – dull, completely characterless execution of one of the easiest acting bits in our show. MY how FAR we’ve come
I’m also very thankful for the people I got to meet. Every day at work was a blast, filled with side-splitting laughs in the green room and on stage. It REALLY didn’t seem fair to be having as much fun at work as we did. I hope my life is full of more jobs and people like this. Also, along with people that make me laugh, I love meeting people that teach me something new, and I think I learned something new from every person in my cast. Sure, I accredit a lot of it to the ‘Talks with Ammon’ sessions that were never planned and yet happened so frequently, but he wasn’t the only one that had useful information to contribute to my absorbent ears From nutritional info from the many health-conscious members of my cast, to ridiculously vulgar things that came out of Calvin’s mouth on a regular basis, I definitely learned a lot. I’ll also miss the poker nights at Kevin and Brandon’s (and hope they’ll start back up again now that the scabies outbreak is under control), playing and DOMINATING catchphrase on Calvin’s team, and Calvin’s demeaning cries of “YOU SUCK” when he’d be winning, medusa-ing or being medusa-ed on and off-stage, and keeping mine and Becky’s bond to each other a secret from Ellis just to drive him crazy what else… hm. I will miss Smithers, but not the smell he made a habit of sharing with the group whenever his bowels were misbehaving. I’ll miss talking trash to Lindsay and Mika, who I hope know that I only talked trash to them because I liked them, and hope the sentiment was mutual. Sorry to my readers, the two of you that know about this blog, for rambling on about things you can’t possibly understand… but try to giggle with me as I remember these moments for myself. I don’t have a ton of memories from my housemates… I know I’ll miss the literally CONSTANT music coming from Clint’s room, and I won’t really miss Patrick’s pots and pans banging in the morning when he was making breakfast, but the remaining smell of bacon and eggs was nice. My first night in town was spent at Mike’s place, per Christine’s suggestion, with the four of us sitting around with instruments and lyrics on a computer figuring our way through performances of Seven Bridges Road and Afternoon Delight I’m not… proud of these videos… because lord knows there’s not fantastic singing going on, but, if you can reflect back to my post about listening to my friends perform at Squires, and how refreshing that was, I think you’ll understand how much I thoroughly enjoyed the simplicity of that night at Mike’s. I wish I could have spent more time with Dimitric; he is one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met, musically and otherwise. I feel like I had several meaningful conversations with Isaac, and I hope he remembers them with the same warm heart that I do. I’ll definitely miss chatting with Megan during our walks out of the park each day, and investigating every living creature, no matter how seemingly insignificant, that we came across around the Italy stage. I met a lot of special people in my time here, and I am intensely hoping that my path will cross with some of theirs again someday, because they truly enriched my life and I would love for them be a part of it again. But, like I said before, life goes on, whether we want it to or not, and we have to go with it.
Now, I can attest that goodbyes are a good kind of pain… just like the pain of missing someone. I guess they go hand-in-hand. As much as I’ve frequently disliked myself for my feelings toward people or things, because they’ve led to awful pain at some point or another, I know deep down that I believe it’s a blessing to have the capacity to care about something or someone other than yourself even just a little bit. And the pain we have to go through is great, because it means you have found something special, something that you consider valuable in your life, and a real and true connection with something. I can’t do much to convince myself that the whole transition process to a new point in life doesn’t simply suck sometimes, but I can at least focus on the future with hope and optimism. How could I not after this year? I’ve had a pretty fantastic year, full of adventures and wonderful people and experiences, and it all happened because of one huge plan falling through. Everything happens for a reason.
I’m not sure if I said all I wanted to say from when I originally started writing, but it’s late, and the Dunkin Donuts coffee I had (which, Megan and I declare has like twice the caffeine of any other coffee) is finally wearing off and I’m growing sleepy. I’m at the beach this weekend with my family, a LOT of my family – Nanny, Mom, Dad, Mark, Allen, Jenny, Zach, Hannah, Matt, Josh, Will, Crystal, Sydney (MY NEW COUSIN THAT I FINALLY GET TO MEET TOMORROW!), and family friends Danielle and Nicole… it’s the fullest the house has been in a long time! I’m glad I got to be down here with them, I know my parents hate when I’m too busy to come to the beach.
School starts in 12 days! O_o oof. My next post NEEDS to be about my new apartment – a solid 12 minute walk from my door to Top of the Hill. I love it. I don’t care if my bedroom is small. I love that I can walk to campus.
My life is awesome. And I’m glad it goes on. :)
